


The Work Has Just Begun

by nauticalcosmos



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Gen, Zuko is an Awkward Turtleduck, i'm such a slut for politics that I couldn't not write this, optimistic as shit, rebuilding governments, reflections on the past and the future, zuko is learning patience
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-23
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-23 10:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23276446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nauticalcosmos/pseuds/nauticalcosmos
Summary: His coronation was not the end of the Fire Nations woes. There was so much work to be done and not a lot of time to get it done. A brief look at how Zuko re-established his government, politics, and policies.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar), The Gaang & Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 7
Kudos: 176





	The Work Has Just Begun

**HE** glared balefully at Ryia. She stared back evenly, rarely blinking. It unnerved him, so he stood suddenly and moved to the window while he said, “I don’t understand why I have to play nice.”

Even though his back was to her, he could feel his head advisor roll her eyes. She cleared her throat and said without a hint of the irritation he knew she felt, “Well, sir, the province governors have the ability to reign down a specific and painful type of hell onto you.” 

“So I have to put up with being disrespected in my own home?” he asked her. It was mainly rhetorical, but Ryia was nothing if not a cunning political operative. That’s why he and his uncle thought she was perfect for the job. She was ruthless and cunning, and by the time you knew she had manipulated you, it was too late. She had endless patience, and if she was not as sarcastic, she sometimes she reminded him of Uncle. He turned around and face her. 

  
“Fire Lord, you haven’t been disrespected…yet,” she said sitting in front of his desk effortlessly. “And if you are, I have a list of actions that can be taken based on the severity of the slight.” 

  
“Such as?” he asked her. Sometimes, he needed to know that there were tactics that he could use that were not blowing up in a governors face about a perceived slight. 

  
“A minor response is to reassign his palace servant. A more severe one is to decrease a tax subsidy on something the governor has a personal stake in such as grain or manufacturing.”  


“Nothing that would directly hurt the citizens of their province?” Zuko asked her, sitting down again. “Not the way I would apply them,” she replied. He supposed that was the best he could hope for. 

“Okay, fine. What do I need to read to prepare for this week-long set of meetings?” he asked her. She pulled out a dozen scrolls and separated them across his desk. 

“These two are about the proposed set of taxes. They would replace the militarized taxes put in place by Fire Lord Azulon and replace them with redistribution taxes in order to help redistribute unequal wealth that is concentrated in the nobility and manufacturers. The next set discusses the various treaties and how they would impact each province. The last ones are about different economic topics like the national bank, resource allocation, and imports/export laws. Advisor Tuzon is also crafting legislation for a national healthcare coverage.”

“Thank you, Ryia,” he said. She bowed and replied. 

“I’ll be back later this afternoon with Shin-yi and Advisor Xia for a refresher on the meetings etiquette,” Ryia said before leaving for her chambers next to his office. 

He really was not sure what Ryia did when she was not talking him off of a political ledge. He should learn, eventually, but for now all he needed to know was that she was the reason he had any hope of restoring his nation to its former glory. Sitting with his friends, training Aang, and fighting the war seemed like an eternity ago, but it was less than a year. Restructuring a government and society was much more difficult than he had imagined. And he imagined it was going to be very difficult. The first thing they did was bring the military home and take stock of the skills the soldiers had. Foot soldiers were given the option of vocational training or land assignment; when the Fire Nation militarized a lot of the farming was outsourced to the Earth Nation colonies which they grossly underpaid. There were large swaths of his country’s natural resources that were being underutilized. In a month, Zuko halved the size of the military. During this time, he and his Uncle stripped many Generals of their roles and promoted those more sympathetic to the kinder Fire Nation they were attempting to build. This had caused significant push back from the noble class and Zuko’s temper exploded at the wrong noble which is how he found himself at the wrong end of an assassination attempt. 

Suddenly Zuko’s reign was divided into pre and post- assassination. After his temper, Iroh had determined that the next most important thing was to rebuild Zuko’s cabinet. They found merchants, governors, nobles, and scholars to fill positions. Suddenly his workload, while still enormous, did not feel as suffocating. The new problem was ensuring each member of his cabinet was coordinated correctly. Iroh recognized this need long before Zuko did and already had a name in mind when Zuko inquired about a head advisor. Iroh gave him Ryia’s name. She was a year or two older than Zuko but came from a well-known family and was a legal scholar or significant renown for someone so young. She wore glasses perched at the end of her nose and her hair was pulled back in a severe bun. Almost everyone assumed she was significantly older than she appeared, and Zuko suspected she did that on purpose. Despite her severe appearance, Ryia had a sardonic sense of humor that made Zuko’s meetings bearable. During the dreadful meetings, she would always sit behind him and to his right. It allowed her to lean forward and give Zuko any information or advice needed. It also allowed him to hear the quiet insult she leveled at some of the noble ruling class. Zuko had a cabinet that carried out his will, but there was a separate legislative senate that consisted of the nobility class; they made his life difficult and miserable. They only had one job, collecting and allocating taxes. At first it seemed easy to out maneuver them, but he had not realized how much power the nations coffers actually provided. 

While he was not opposed to the idea of a Senate, he did not enjoy the way the Senate was chosen. Each member was allowed to choose their successor when they retire. There was no rule establishing how long someone could serve on the senate, either. Effectively the Senate was the most powerful families in the Fire Nation and each Senate position was passed down through families. In one regard, this meant that more than a few of the Senate members were on his side as their family held that position long before Sozin took over. It also meant that some of his father’s most devoted followers were also on the Senate. 

After he took power, three of them conspired to kill him (his second assassination attempt) and his guards were able to try and convict them. Zuko seized their liquid assets and divided the wealth into the funds for wounded soldiers and war reparations. Furthermore, he was able to give the three senate seats to individuals he knew would support him. The final count of the Senate was 16 of his supporters, 15 of his opposition, and 3 individuals whose votes were swing votes. More often than not he got his way, but it was always an uphill battle. At some point during his reign, he planned to change the Senate so each of the 34 Fire Nation provinces elected their representatives, but until his government was more stable, he did not plan to piss off every rich and powerful family in his nation. He had a few allies, but none as powerful as his enemies; it was precarious but Ryia and his advisors were adept at the way they spun the truth around his restructuring of government. He would never be caught dead saying this out loud, but the benefit of taking over after a major authoritarian ruler is that most of the power was centralized and he could do what he wished until it was established enough to decentralize power. Sometimes, when sleep was elusive, he was afraid the same hunger for power that Sozin, Azulon, and Ozai had would infect him. On nights like that he would draft legislation that gave his power to local governors or allied senators; it helped to remind him that his actions had consequences and he was not his ancestors…or at least the most recent ones. 

**RYIA** had him standing in an antechamber to the meeting room while the 34 province governors sat down in their large meeting room. In the past, meetings like this would be held in the throne room. Zuko had exactly zero good memories of the throne room and until he had the time and money to redesign the decrepit, nefarious room, no one was allowed to enter. Fire Nation business was handled in one of the two meeting rooms or his office on the East Side of the palace. Living quarters were on the West Side with courtyard that separated the royal family’s northern living quarters and southern visiting nobles, diplomats, or friends’ rooms. 

When Zuko’s friends came to visit they always stayed on the North side with Zuko. Aang had stayed with Zuko for two months while he solidified power and tried to stay alive, but after those two months he had other Avatar duties and bid his goodbye promising if Zuko ever needed anything that he would be back as soon as he could. Toph left with Aang promising to come back and wreak havoc on the palace once more. While she was still around Zuko enlisted her to redesign the old tunnels that ran under the palace. He realized that Toph loved the challenge of creating. One night during their set dinner she explained the intricacies of building a new tunnel while closing an old one and ensuring that the palace didn’t collapse on top of her. Katara stuck around just long enough to teach healers some of her vast knowledge before she returned to rebuild the Southern Water Tribe with her father. The highlight of his weeks were her letter detailing how everything was going. The Northern Tribe was not being near as helpful as she hoped they would be due to their antiquated gender roles, but she said that with Pakku coming around and negotiating with her they were making headway. 

Perhaps the most interesting outcome of their little group was that Sokka and Suki stuck around the Fire Nation. Official they operated as ambassadors of their respective homes, but unofficially they stayed in order to ensure Zuko was protected from another assassination attempt. He enjoyed having them around, mainly because they were fun and as much as he liked and respected Ryia, they sure were not going to gather in his living chambers and get drunk on sake while Sokka recounted how his ex-girlfriend turned into the moon. Whenever he had free time, he enjoyed sparring with Sokka and Sukki. They both presented new challenges with their sword and fans respectively. He never used his bending with them, not because they couldn’t handle it but because he did not want to be vulnerable should anything like the Solar Eclipse happen again. He desperately wished they could join him during these dreadful meetings, but he was enough of an outsider in the court. Zuko wasn’t sure if the governors could handle two actual outsiders joining their discussing, even if the majority of it was about taxes. 

Ryia knocked on the door he was leaning against, so he straightened his outer robes and headpiece, counted to five, and then opened the door and walked straight to his seat at the head of the room. Each governor bowed and it looked the least begrudgingly so far. Only one governor looked like he wanted to murder Zuko, and frankly, that was a major improvement. He gestured for them to be seated. They each sat along a long table with seventeen governors on each side, and Zuko himself at the head. Before he walked in servants had set out water and wine for the governors and their staffs had given them the relevant scrolls for the days agenda. The first item on the agenda was a welcome speech. Ryia and Nikka, his Diplomacy Advisor, helped him write it. Sukki and Sokka had heard it at dinner last night and thought it was the right mix of optimistic and firm in the new direction the country was going. So he began, 

“Welcome to the Summer Governors Meeting. I am honored to host you all in my home. Thank you for your travels and willingness to walk with me in the new direction our country is heading. I look forward to leading us in an effort to restore the honor of the Fire Nation and foster strong relations within our country and with those beyond our borders. I look forward to your frankness, cooperation, and candor in this new endeavor. I am not my father, nor my grandfather. I have no desire to scare you in to submission, but desire a discussion of what is best for your province and the nation as a whole. Let’s begin,” he said sitting down. Surprisingly, the governors gave him a short round of applause, which while unexpected was not unappreciated. 

“A good sign,” Ryia whispered behind him. He noticed she had her notebooks out with each governor’s name and a check mark or X-mark next to their name. There were some notes scribbled by a few names, and more than ever he was glad to have her in his corner. 

By the time lunch was served, Zuko’s injured eye began to twitch. He was weary and negotiating with so many people at once was difficult and tiresome. He took leave of the meeting and his servant led him through the service tunnel back to his chambers. He took the eye drops that Katara had given him and put some in his injured eye. He was sure what exactly was in it, but it helped immensely. She had shown the palace healer how to craft it and he made a mental note to ask his servant to request another batch made. He had lunch in his personal courtyard and watched the turtleducks swim and quack. He did not think about the meeting but allowed his brain a break. Surprisingly, it was Sokka that finally got through to him about taking care of himself. Zuko remembered sitting in this very courtyard during sunrise after staying up all night working. Sokka had walked up to him and without warning (or maybe there was a lot of warning, Zuko was exhausted) knocked him over on his ass. Before Zuko could get upset, Sokka pulled him back to his feet and gripped his shoulders fiercely. 

“If you do not take care of yourself, you will die. Either by exhaustion or someone else’s hand. And I cannot handle losing another friend if I can prevent it okay? So from now on, I’m going to make sure you go to bed. You’re an absolute child and I am giving you a bedtime! I’m the bedtime guy now!” 

Eventually he got Zuko to take breaks throughout the day, so he didn’t work himself to the bone. He would never tell Sokka, mainly for lack of words to express it, but he was grateful the man stuck around to help him out. Without Sokka and Suki, he wasn’t sure he’d be sane. He knew they would eventually leave and head in their own directions, but for now they were keeping him sane while he ran a whole country. Zuko leaned back against his tree and felt the sun warm him from the inside out. He looked at the sun dial to his left and figured he had time to mediate before a servant came to retrieve him to return to the meeting. As he mediated, he realized how different he was to the kid who fought Azula almost a year ago. To everyone’s surprise he was much more patient and thoughtful, Iroh credited Ryia with that accomplishment, but Zuko figured he had something to do with it. Sokka once told him that he no longer thought like a war strategist, but a political strategist. Sokka was right, which was becoming more and more frequent as the weeks past. Eventually, his servant, Jin, came to retrieve him and he returned to the meeting and arguing about tax codes. 

**AT** the end of the week there was a large party where the nobility, senators, cabinet, and governors all came together to celebrate the end of the Summer Quarter meetings and the official agreements on how to run the country for the next three months. Sokka and Suki were allowed to attend this event, and more often than not he used them to avoid dancing with anyone’s daughters or speak to people about resources. If he had to speak with Governor Yin of the Kashiwa province about his iron ore one more time his head was going to explode. Thankfully, Sokka, Suki and his advisors all sat at his table and rules of the court prevented anyone from speaking to him unless spoken to. 

“There’s Governor Iron Ore, sir, should you desire to discuss the intricacies of crafting metal again,” Ryia suggested sweetly. To anyone who didn’t know her, she was making a kind suggestion but Zuko could hear the amusement behind her words. Tonight, she ditched the tight bun and glasses for a long flowing maroon gown and a top knot. Her eyes danced with mirth and she watched his face pinch. 

“You enjoyed that conversation too much,” he grumbled. 

“What conversation?” Suki asked. Ryia grinned but before she could recount it, Zuko said, 

“The governor of Kashiwa is really proud of iron and what his artisans have created. So proud in fact that the national trade price should be much higher. Which he told me. Multiple time. In multiple different ways. Every day this week,” he grumbled. 

“We have bets placed about how many times he will bring it up again tonight,” said Guiyang, his military advisor and close friend of his uncle. 

Ryia smiled, “I have three gold pieces on him mentioning it twice.” 

Guiyang guffawed, “At least four times.” 

Suddenly his table was cacophony of people betting on how much a governor of a small province was going to harass him tonight. Jokes and laughter were aplenty and for this moment Zuko soaked it in. He was surrounded by good people. Change was slow and hard, but this scene had not happened for at least a hundred years. It was small, but it was a sign. Things were really changing for the better. 

**Author's Note:**

> Re-watching ATLA as an adult and someone who has majored in political science and worked in governments, I became intensely interested in how the Fire Nation re-established itself. I couldn't find a whole lot, so I wrote it myself. There's a whole spreadsheet where I outlined the government for myself.
> 
> I so enjoyed writing this, so it might become a series. Who knows?


End file.
